A Frenzy of Foreign Affairs

Tonight, I�m going to focus on something that I usually don�t focus on: foreign affairs. Usually I focus on domestic issues, specifically the happenings in the media and Congress. But some important and slightly concerning events have occurred in the past few days in places other than the US. Combined with the difficulty of finding a story in the US that is not about our President�s comments or tweets on any given day, foreign affairs are a lot more appealing to me right now.  

            Our first and most concerning country of focus tonight is North Korea. For years North Korea has been expanding their nuclear program and conducting multiple series of missile tests despite sanctions and protest from the rest of the world. These missile tests and military exercises have increased in frequency this year which may be attributed to the change of leadership in the US with Donald Trump replacing Barack Obama as president. Nobody knows what Kim Jong Un is thinking or what his strategy is, but it�s feasible that these constant missile tests are really just a test for our president. North Korea wants to see the reaction and response to their actions and what kind of president Donald Trump is compared to Barack Obama. On Friday, the most recent ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) test landed in the Sea of Japan after flying 1,275 miles high and traveling 620 miles. This test puts cities like Washington D.C. and New York in range of a North Korean missile. On a side note: that missile came within a few miles of hitting an Air France airplane that was flying from Japan. If that plane was hit by the missile, a war would have most likely been declared and more missiles would have been launched (and they wouldn�t be test launches). This test launch escalated the North Korea issue for the rest of the world because nobody knew that the North Koreans had such an advanced nuclear program. After launch failures and other missile mistakes earlier this year, many regarded North Korea as not much of a threat that is too far away to have an impact on the US. This test changed that and made North Korea seem a lot closer because we are within their range now. This distant threat is now at our front door. And with our current leadership, who knows how the US will respond or if this conflict can cool down before it explodes into a nuclear war.

            Speaking of our current leadership, this brings up the second country of focus for tonight: Russia.  President Trump signed legislation that officially placed sanctions on Russia today for their backing of Syrian dictator Bashir-al Assad in the Syrian Civil War. The legislation also put economic sanctions on Iran and North Korea and added that the president did not have the power to lift these sanctions (I found that funny). Trump grudgingly signed this bill today for the sake of �national unity� but insisted that, �As president, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.� Russia has not responded to these sanctions very happily. 755 diplomats have been expelled from the American embassy in Moscow on the order of President Putin. A series of military parades were held on Sunday in St. Petersburg, Crimea, and Syria to celebrate Navy Day. These massive parades were really just a glorified flexing of the Russian military. These parades and the exchange of sanctions between the US and Russia definitely signal a rift in the fragile relationship between the two countries and might lead to conflict in the future.

            The third and final country of focus tonight is Venezuela. This country recently held an election to form a �Constituents Assembly� that would be granted almost unlimited power and would override the already existing legislative branch. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held this election with the intent that he would use the assembly to grant him the authority to rewrite the constitution and give him more power. For months, the opposition to Maduro has staged protests and clashed with police in the streets of Caracas where many have died or have been arrested. Disputed turnout size for this election has exposed the illegitimacy of this election. Maduro�s government reported that voter turnout was 8 million while the company that managed the election said that the actual turnout was less than half of what the government alleged. Many members of the opposition boycotted this election because they felt that it was rigged and illegitimate. An unofficial referendum was held by the people where 7.6 million people turned out and rejected the assembly. This statistic shows that millions of more people voted to reject the assembly altogether than actually participated in the assembly�s election. It�s revealing of the Venezuelan�s discontent with their government. The US has placed sanctions on Maduro for this �sham� election and there has been talk of an oil embargo which would destroy the economy of Venezuela, which is already suffering. However, these sanctions would negatively affect the US economically which is why many have been skeptical to go forward with the oil embargo. I do not think that the US should place an oil embargo on Venezuela because that would only do more damage to the Venezuelan working class and opposition, a group caught in the crossfire of this political chaos.

            The world is a crazy place, especially right now. That�s all for this week.

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